Historic matriculation ceremony welcomes freshwomen and transfer students into a century-old tradition of scholarship, sisterhood and purpose
GREENSBORO, N.C. — August 28, 2026 — Against a backdrop of white florals, African drums, spoken word and music, Bennett College formally opened its 2026–27 academic year Friday with Convocatum Est, the College’s historic Ceremony of Matriculation welcoming freshwomen and transfer students into the Bennett sisterhood.
Dressed in traditional white, the newest Belles gathered in the Global Learning Center Multipurpose Room with faculty, staff, alumnae, returning students and family members who traveled from near and far to celebrate a defining moment in their academic journeys.
The ceremony blended academic tradition with faith, culture and the arts. White floral arrangements framed the stage, while African drumming, scripture, music and live spoken word underscored a central message of the morning: becoming a Bennett Belle carries expectations that extend beyond academic achievement to character, leadership, service and responsibility.
For Bennett’s newest students, that transition became tangible through a series of personal rituals. Each student was formally welcomed to Bennett, posed for a commemorative photograph with Acting President Dr. Ronald L. Carter, witnessed her name in the historic College Register and was presented with pearls by Bennett College alumnae.
“Today, we have done more than place names in the College Register,” Carter said in his closing remarks. “We have written new names into the continuing story of Bennett College.”
The moment carried added significance during Bennett’s centennial celebration of its 1926 reorganization as a college for women. One hundred years later, another class formally entered an institution built on the belief that educating women can transform lives, professions and communities.
Intelligence, Character and the Responsibility to Lead
Attorney Cassandra Jones Havard ’78, Chair of the Bennett College Board of Trustees, formally called the 2026–27 academic convocation to order and welcomed the newest members of the Bennett sisterhood.
“Convocatum Est is more than an opening ceremony,” Havard said. “It is an invitation into a community and into a tradition.”
Drawing on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s description of education as the development of “intelligence plus character,” Havard challenged students to think beyond the credentials they would earn during their years at Bennett.
Their education, she said, would require intellectual curiosity and rigor. Students would encounter books and ideas that challenged them, assignments that tested them and professors who would expect them not simply to state what they believed, but to examine why they believed it and whether evidence supported their conclusions.
Equally important, Havard said, would be the development of character: the judgment to make difficult decisions, the courage to speak when silence might be easier, the integrity to act honorably when no one is watching and the willingness to extend a hand to another Bennett Belle.
She reminded the students that leadership carries responsibility and that their education should equip them not only to advance themselves, but also to create opportunities for others.
“You do not walk through Bennett alone,” Havard told them.
The women seated beside them, she said, could become classmates, friends, confidantes, professional colleagues and sisters for life, while generations of Bennett women already stood behind them.
Her charge to the entering class was both personal and demanding: remain curious enough to reconsider what they believe, confident enough to use their voices, disciplined enough to pursue excellence and compassionate enough to care about someone else’s future as much as their own.
And above all, she challenged them to be “courageous enough to become the woman you do not yet know you can be.”
A Bennett education, Havard told the students, is not simply preparation for a career.
“It is preparation for a life of purpose.”
Sisterhood Given Voice
That sense of collective responsibility came alive through a spoken-word performance by Jasmine Faison ’10, Jazmin Rawls ’27 and Kristan Radcliffe-Stephens ’29, accompanied by African drummers.
Their call-and-response presentation drew on ancestry, Black womanhood, resilience and Ubuntu, the African philosophy centered on interconnectedness and community.
“Your sister’s success is connected to your own,” the performers declared. “Your voice strengthens the collective, and your presence preserves community.”
The performance framed Bennett sisterhood not simply as tradition, but as responsibility: to lift as one climbs, make room for others, seek knowledge and recognize that individual achievement is strengthened by community.
When the performers asked what happens when the road becomes difficult, the response was resolute:
“We will still breathe, still speak, still rise.”
And when the exchange turned to achievement, it offered an important distinction for students beginning college:
“Excellence is not perfection. It is the will to keep going, to keep working, to try again and again.”
The performance invoked Black women whose courage, scholarship, activism and artistry helped widen the possibilities available to the women entering Bennett today, before concluding:
“Welcome, sisters. Welcome home.”
The Ceremony of Matriculation
The formal Ceremony of Matriculation brought the morning’s themes of scholarship, responsibility and sisterhood into a series of deeply personal traditions.
Dr. Toneye S. Randolph, Chief Academic Officer, presented the faculty entrusted with educating Bennett’s students. Dr. Tiese L. Roxbury, Executive Director of Student Success & Retention, then formally presented the freshwomen and transfer students as young women who had demonstrated the character and ability required to undertake the work Bennett would ask of them.
Standing together, the students affirmed their desire to become members of Bennett College and their willingness to accept the responsibilities of that membership.
Then, one by one, each new Belle was formally welcomed to Bennett.
Each student first stepped forward for a commemorative photograph with Carter, capturing the beginning of her formal Bennett journey. She then moved to the historic College Register, where Dr. Samuel L. Grogg, College Registrar, presided as she witnessed her name among those entering the College.
From there, the students were greeted by Bennett College alumnae, who presented each new Belle with pearls, a deeply symbolic welcome into the Bennett sisterhood from women who had once made the same journey.
The progression connected each student to Bennett in a personal and visible way, from the formal welcome, to the photograph with the president, to witnessing her name in the College Register and receiving pearls from alumnae.
Carter returned to the symbolism of the pearls in his closing remarks.
“The pearls you receive today are small, but the meaning is not,” he said. “A pearl is born slowly in hidden places through pressure, patience and transformation. So too will you be formed here.”
He reminded the students that their years at Bennett will include moments of certainty and moments when they must move forward without knowing exactly where the path will lead.
“When those moments come, remember you did not come to Bennett simply to earn a degree,” Carter said. “You came to discover more fully who you are, what you can be and what the world is waiting for you to give.”
He described the newly matriculated students as entering “a sacred stream of women” who discovered at Bennett the courage “to think boldly, to speak with authority, to lead with purpose and, above all, to imagine lives larger than the circumstances they inherit.”
Now, he told them, that opportunity belongs to them.
Faith, Culture and the Arts
Faith and artistic expression were woven throughout the ceremony.
The program opened with Adolphus Hailstork’s “Great Day,” followed by the processional, William Mathias’ “Fanfare.” The invocation was offered by the Rev. Dr. Natalie V. McLean ’80, Minister of Ministries at Providence Baptist Church.
Scripture readings by Tatiana Perry ’29 and Kayla Williams ’30 drew from Proverbs and Philippians, emphasizing wisdom, faithfulness, discernment and the pursuit of what is true and excellent.
Later, Ocean Pierson ’28 performed “The Impossible Dream,” whose message of reaching beyond what appears possible echoed the challenge students had heard throughout the morning. Pierson also led the College in the singing of the Alma Mater, while Radcliffe-Stephens returned to offer the benediction.
Together, those elements reflected the breadth of Bennett’s educational tradition, one in which scholarship, spirituality, creativity and community are part of the development of the whole student.
“Bennett Is Rising. Bennett Is Becoming.”
Carter used his closing remarks to move from the individual journeys of Bennett’s newest students to the larger trajectory of the College itself.
“Something is stirring at Bennett,” he said. “We can feel it.”
He described Bennett as a college with a remarkable past that is reaching toward an equally remarkable future.
“We are not here merely to preserve what Bennett has been,” Carter said. “We are here to awaken what Bennett will become.”
That future, he made clear, will not be created apart from the students entering Bennett today.
“You are not standing on the sidelines of that becoming,” he told them. “You are intrinsically part of it.”
Carter encouraged the newest Belles to “lean into the pulse of possibility” and to dream in ways worthy of the women on whose shoulders they now stand, while building lives and institutions worthy of the women who will one day stand on theirs.
“Let the world hear your voices,” he said. “Let it witness your brilliance. Let it experience your courage.”
Then he turned the question outward: What, exactly, is happening on this historic campus in Greensboro, North Carolina?
Carter offered an answer intended to extend beyond the walls of the ceremony.
“Bennett is rising. Bennett is becoming. And we are just getting started.”
For Bennett’s newest students, Convocatum Est officially opened an academic year. More consequentially, it marked their entrance into a community that will ask them to learn, question, lead, serve and contribute their own names, and eventually their own accomplishments, to a story generations in the making.
“Welcome home,” Carter told them, “and welcome to the future of Bennett College.”
About Bennett College
Founded in 1873 and reorganized in 1926 as a college for women, Bennett College is a private, historically Black liberal arts college in Greensboro, North Carolina, dedicated to the education and leadership development of women. For generations, Bennett has prepared women to lead with purpose, advocate for their communities and use their education to create meaningful change. As the College celebrates the centennial of its reorganization as a college for women, Bennett continues its legacy of developing intellectually curious, socially conscious and globally prepared leaders.
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